Some information about Google (and sometimes Bing) and its search engine, unofficially gathered here and there in recent days, including this week a few answers to these worrying questions: does duplicate content send a negative signal to Google? How important is URL structure? Why should you avoid focusing on Google Trends?
Duplicate content is not a negative signal, but it can cause problems
Martin Splitt explains that duplicate content does not negatively affect a site's quality, but it can cause operational problems, notably slowing crawling and making performance tracking more difficult. To remedy this, he recommends three solutions: use canonical tags in HTML or in the header to indicate priority pages, manage redirects and internal links, and consolidate very similar content to simplify the user experience.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Reliability score: 
We agree!
Sometimes unavoidable, the presence of duplicate content on a site can be explained by a multitude of reasons. John Mueller has already explained in the past that the phenomenon is not a negative signal to the algorithm, but that when duplicate content exists, Google may choose to show only a single page.
Goossip #2
URL structure is less important than content quality
John Mueller states that some SEOs place too much importance on URL structure. A clear structure is useful for users and for performance tracking, but it cannot make up for content that is not explicit enough.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Reliability score: We agree!
By constantly trying to focus on points with only relative impact in terms of SEO (here, URL structure), we sometimes forget to spend time on what matters most, namely the relevance and quality of the content.
Goossip #3
Too much reliance on Google Trends undermines the added value of your content
John Mueller warned against excessive use of Google Trends to generate content ideas. Instead of repeating what others have already said, he recommends being selective, focusing on your expertise and on the real needs of users.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Reliability score: We agree!
On this point, you can't really blame John Mueller. It's tempting to cling to trends to generate content without putting much thought into it. That sometimes overlooks the fact that thousands of other sites do exactly the same thing, most often without any real added value. That's where you can make the difference!
The article "Goossips SEO: duplicate content, URLs and Google Trends" was published on the site Abondance.
